HAMILTON IN MOTOGP LINK

Lewis Hamilton is believed to be willing to put his support into the takeover of a MotoGP team, according to Italian and British sources.

A self-confessed big fan of motorbikes, Hamilton is believed to be in advanced negotiations with Ducati’s satelite team Gresini, the plan being to completely take over the Italian team and start running from the start of 2025.

The rumours started circulating when Lewis Hamilton’s close friend and manager Mark Hynes was spotted in the Dutch MotoGP paddock, in Assen, meeting up with the sports’ organisers, Dorna, and also with a few team owners, including Gresini’s Nadia Padovani.

Fausto Gresini’s widow has taken the helm of the team the former Italian rider founded and ran for many years, but with the sport about to take a big step forward, may feel it’s time to give way to people with more commercial experience and cash in on the investment made in the last couple of decades.

As has already been announced, MotoGP is currently in the process of being acquired by Liberty Media, who bought Formula 1 at the start of 2017, with the team’s value growing massively on the expectation the American company will be able to reproduce in the sport the same commercial success it has experienced in Formula 1.

Getting Formula 1’s biggest name to be part of the MotoGP family would be a major boost for the motorbike championship’s popularity, so it will be purely logical if Liberty Media actively helps Hamilton to take over a MotoGP team.

At Silverstone, Hamilton didn’t deny he’s interested in joining MotoGP in the future, but was not drawn into confirming he’s in negotiations with Gresini or that he’ll be willing to buy any team in the near future.

The Mercedes driver openly admitted that “I’ve always loved MotoGP and I’m interested in the potential growth of the sport, but I haven’t looked that far into it just yet. But anything’s possible.”

He then added that “I’m definitely interested in, as I’ve said before, equity and already with the Broncos, it was already a first step in team ownership. I think over the next five to 10 years, there’ll be hopefully more. We’ll see where …”

Across the Channel, MotoGP was racing in Germany last weekend and a couple of top riders were also quite positive about welcoming the seven-times World Champion into their sport. 

Spanish legend Marc Marquéz said that “if it’s true, it’s positive for our sport,” joking afterwards that “even if it isn’t true, it’s still positive because we need people talking about this.”

And fellow Spaniard Jorge Martin, who led the championship going into this round, agreed that, “if someone like Hamilton, who is an icon, wants to buy a MotoGP team, it is because something is changing and that seems very good to me.”

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